Chapter 488 Rurik stands in Murmansk and gazes at the Arctic Ocean
The daylight hours were already very short, and Rurik felt that only three or four hours had passed from the time the sun rose to the time it set.
The daylight hours are shortening sharply every day, and eventually polar night envelopes the world.
Are you really going to run to the Arctic Ocean in the polar night? Is it too crazy?
Having already reached Haikou and having made promises to his men and new allies, he found that he was in a difficult position and could only go one way to the end.
Now the question arises, what kind of path should we choose? Is there a clear path in the vast snowfield?
A group of people built a camp in the pine forest on the edge of the frozen lake (Lake Kemi). Some small pine trees were cut down suddenly, and the trunks were built into supports and covered with linen to serve as tents to shelter from the wind.
Everyone peeled off the deer skin, and the steaming leather quickly became hard.
The bloody venison was poked with pine branches, grilled over the fire, and sprinkled with salt.
The deer blood was not processed well, so the deer meat was really bad. Rurik could only bite the bullet and eat it while holding a lump of oily barbecue. He comforted himself that at least it was better than those hunters in more ancient times, or those who ate raw meat.
Nomadic deer herders do not count themselves as eating hair and drinking blood.
He was thinking about the way forward, and everyone was thinking the same thing.
The sons of the two leaders of Balmok, they did not dare to back down since they had decided to see the "Northern Sea". To back down would mean that they were cowards and would definitely be despised by the Russians.
In a sense, precisely because both parties in the alliance are supervising each other and flaunting their bravery, there is no room left.
The hungry Biyongni gnawed a deer calf, and he realized that he could never eat it again. He wiped his greasy hands with snow casually, and shouted: "We go all the way north and follow this glacier, and we can reach the sea."
"This is impossible." Rurik said casually, tilting his head slightly.
"Why? We are right on the lakeside, and the river from the north obviously flows into this lake."
"Because water can only come from high places. We will continue to move forward on the glacier and reach the source of the water, but we cannot directly reach the sea. We also need to find a real waterway leading to the north."
Rurik's words should have been easy to understand, but Biyoni didn't understand them for a while, "It doesn't matter. When we reach the source of the river and can't find a new ice road, we will go north in the wilderness. We will definitely be able to see that
An ocean. If it really exists... No! It must exist!"
"Of course the sea exists, but we have to find the glacier." Rurik raised his head, and the flames of the bonfire reflected in his pupils: "I can guarantee with my reputation that there is a harbor that will never freeze in the north of us.
It’s pure. I want to find it and occupy it!”
"Well. I hope there are bears out there...Listen, my brother." Biyonni smiled slightly, "We are still interested in bear hunting."
"You can rest assured about this. We will definitely hunt a lot of white bears that catch seals. If we don't catch a lot, we will definitely catch a lot of seals. That's the only thing I'm worried about."
"Say it."
"Will we enter pure night, a very long night? We will have to rely on starlight, moonlight and Aurora to continue our progress. Will we be forced to endure extreme cold? Or we may encounter severe snowstorms. Maybe in winter
It’s not a good time to explore.”
"The long night?" Biyongni looked at his brother Floki, and both of them laughed. "What is that? We Balmok are used to the complete night in winter. Odin divided the year into twelve parts.
? Designing one of them to be pure night is a test for us. We dare to march at night, and I hope you Russians can too."
"This is best." Rurik nodded and felt a sense of security.
The next morning, the luxurious sunshine shone on the vast snowfield, but the veterans of the expedition were already moving forward on the ice.
The reindeer were fed some wheat? They gnawed some grass roots freely? After gaining strong physical strength, they continued to move forward under the driving of humans. These eight domesticated deer simply ignored their killed wild kin, even on the sled
Also pulling were a batch of pre-made meat skewers that were frozen as stone and threaded on tree branches, and a batch of deer skins that were stretched out and were frozen as hard as wooden boards. They didn't feel anything at all.
The Rus and the Balmoks? Everyone is huddled together again? They continue to move north in the increasingly cold climate.
The people on the sled were laughing and bragging to kill the boredom of the journey, and at the same time they were observing the woods around the glacier. If a bear, wolf or other animal appeared at this time, they would not hesitate to jump off the sled and start hunting.
In the current situation, hunting is no longer just for leather. People believe that their lives are facing a huge threat from extreme cold. Does hunger mean the body is cold? It even means freezing to death.
There must be a tribe of herding deer herders in this area. Once they are discovered? The expedition team will not hesitate to launch an attack. Now that Rurik is in an extreme environment, he understands one thing? For himself and his brothers
If they can live safely, then let the exposed deer herder tribe die. He really doesn’t want to be a big evil person? He can only hope that those guys will not be exposed.
Is the day disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye? Is it another evening? The team encountered a problem.
"What to do now?" Biyongni asked doubtfully.
The velvet hat covered Rurik's frown: "A fork in the road. Damn it!"
"Should we go this way? Left or right? You make up your mind."
"Then go to the right."
"Why? Oh, I'd like to ask more..."
Rurik muttered with a calm face: "I remember that the harbor is in the northeast of Ellenburg. Now we must go east and take the river on the right."
The team chose a path recognized by Rurik. Most people didn't care. Biyoni didn't care at first. He just thought about what Rurik just said. The more he thought about it, the more amazing he felt. Just like Rurik himself.
It seemed like he had been to the "freezing harbor" he mentioned. If Odin really gave him the warning, then the team is now on the right path.
No one knows the name of this new glacier, or any river has no natural name, and anyone can give a river a strange name.
If you have paper and pen at this time, Rurik will write down a log record.
He is currently unable to do so, so he can only bite the bullet and go on.
In fact, the glacier the team is traveling on is the Tennie River, which originates from the Murmansk region.
The team advanced under the glow of the Northern Lights. Everyone marveled at the magnificence of the Aurora and thanked the Valkyrie in the sky for guiding them. The sky was clear, and the world under the night was very bright, but the air was really cold...
…
The bonfire drove away the severe cold and potential prey. Of course there were polar bears in this area, but these ferocious beasts were instinctively afraid of fire, and the sudden appearance of light on the earth also made them instinctively avoid it.
They encountered another fork in the road in what is now known as the Savukosky Swamp. Apparently the wider river channel made everyone feel that walking along it was the right path.
The team passed a big turn and continued northward, traveling for two days on an almost purely north-south river. An even worse situation was faced by Rurik.
There may only be two hours of daylight left, and Rurik knows that he is about to enter an even more extreme polar night zone.
It was at this juncture that three frozen rivers appeared in front of us!
Biyongni asked again: "Choose a new road! The river in the middle is too narrow, it must be wrong. The left and right are both wide. Which one should we choose? Or the right?"
Rurik was a little undecided, and he didn't want to show his hesitation. Since Biyongni said this, his worries should be put aside.
"You're right! Just go to the right."
On the right is the river heading east, but the situation increasingly makes Rurik feel that something is wrong.
The team camped under night again. They skillfully used bows and drills to drill wood to make fire. After the campfire dispelled people's fear of the extremely cold night and darkness, they began to cook wheat and roast pre-made meat skewers. However, due to the actual situation,
Rurik issued an order to leave more wheat for the reindeer pulling the cart. After all, once the reindeer cannot eat these high-energy foods, they will never be able to pull the entire team of people and goods.
People woke up at night, and the team began to move forward again. The woods in this area unexpectedly became sparse, and Rurik guessed that everyone had entered the tundra area.
This is both a bad and a positive sign, because only a few of the toughest trees can live near the Arctic Ocean, a vast area that can tolerate extreme moss growth.
The sky gradually brightened, and people who continued to go north along the river clearly felt that the river was rapidly narrowing. They had no time to be afraid, and saw the sun lazily breaking through the horizon, and everyone saw the snow-capped mountains in the north!
Biyongni on the sled stood up directly: "I didn't know there were mountains here! Rurik, could we have been going the wrong way? If we climb over this mountain, maybe we can go home."
"Brother, you are stupid." Floki complained; "The direction pointed by the stars is correct. Look at the sun again. Could it be that the sun will rise from somewhere else?"
Biyongni felt embarrassed. He hurriedly sat down and asked Rurik again: "The river is about to disappear. How can we go without the glacier? The front is not the sea, but the mountains."
Things became very difficult, and Rurik panicked for a while.
With the attitude of having come, he simply made up his mind: "Let's keep rushing! When we reach the hill, we will climb over the mountain. From a high place, we will definitely be able to see the vast sea in the north."
Unfortunately, the arrogant Rurik underestimated the complexity of the geographical structure. What appeared in front of the team was essentially the remnants of the Kola Peninsula Mountains. In summer, there are large areas of Arctic wetlands on both sides of the mountains, which are partially fed into the fresh water of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Its source is here. The place where Rurik is located is the largest water source of the Airon River (Kemi River), but now it is determined how significant this point is.
The so-called adventure is to risk your life to explore the unknown world.
Rurik estimated that a tribe of deer herders would pass by here grazing in winter. He did not find any conclusive traces. He could only hope that the team would rush up to the bare hills and stand on a high place to see the nearby scenery.
The sea is so close.
But even standing on the top of the mountain, he never expected to see the sea.
The Arctic Ocean is indeed in the north, and the nearest coastline is nearly 200 kilometers away from this hill. No matter how strong the viewer's vision is, no matter how clear the air is, no one can ignore the curvature of the earth and see the ocean blocked by the horizon.
People were exploring cautiously. As the saying goes, there must be a road before the car reaches the mountain. When everyone was ready to jump off the sled and climb the mountain to look into the distance, a very obvious glacier appeared in front!
It is not an ordinary glacier, but a glacier with a very wide channel!
The river is nearly a hundred meters wide, with clusters of cedar forests on both sides, and more areas are tundra.
The team still found no traces of deer herders' activities. Perhaps this place has been a no-man's land since ancient times. Rurik suddenly wanted to do an experiment by cutting ice and inserting small pieces of wood. Everyone watched the experiment and confirmed that the river was flowing to the east. But
What exactly does this mean?
"This river is definitely heading towards the sea! I swear!" Rurik seemed to be very calm when he spoke, but people were excited.
"So, if we walk along this new glacier, we will definitely be able to see the harbor and the sea you mentioned?" Biyoni shook Rurik in excitement and kept asking.
"It can only be like this. I hope we can see the sea when it gets completely dark. Biyongni!" Rurik said extremely seriously: "It seems that we all have to be mentally prepared. We have to wait for the pure beauty at the beach.
The night is over..."
"It doesn't matter! The priest said that there is a sea at the end of the world in the north, but no one has ever seen it. I can stand on the coast of the sea at the end of the world, maybe I can meet the Valkyrie, and I can talk to the heroic spirits of my ancestors..."
Biyoni talked about a lot of beautiful fantasies, but Rurik knew that these ideas were too unrealistic.
Time actually begins to enter December of the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar is five or six days longer than the current old Julian calendar, and the date is corrected by five or six days.
The daytime has become dispensable. In fact, in just seven days, pure polar night will arrive, and what awaits everyone will be thirty-eight days of pure night.
The Ross-Balmok mixed expedition team moved forward in darkness for most of the day. The people on the sled felt great discomfort, and the reindeer pulling the sled seemed to be indifferent at all.
One day after the discovery of the new glacier, a new lake appeared!
This lake is extremely winding. It is Lake Turomsk, which is 80 kilometers long from north to south.
In the beginning, the expedition team was just for hunting bears, but now it seems that all humans in the world have disappeared, and only a small group of them are still struggling. They seem to be traveling in the small world created for them by Odin.
, relying entirely on the strong belief of "seeing the world's end sea in the north" and the fact that they are warriors who dare not back down but bear the reputation of being cowards, they drove the reindeer northward along the lakeshore.
The huge lake brought huge benefits, that is, they no longer had to be constrained by the twists and turns of the river. They could take a straight route, so it didn't matter how dark the night was. They rushed to the northernmost point of the lake in just one day.
There seems to be some divine help. Just in the northernmost part of the lake, a river running to the north appears again.
The team decisively continued northward along the river, and the river miraculously continued to widen.
They only marched for one day, and huge difficulties forced everyone to reach the snow-covered river bank.
Everyone didn't know whether to be excited or scared, because there was supposed to be a very thick ice layer on the river, but the ice layer was so thin that people were worried about falling in, and the river became very wide. If we continued to move forward in the old way, everyone would fall sooner or later.
He froze to death and drowned in the river.
People had to move forward on the snow-covered river bank, moving in terrible snow up to their knees. No one dared to go deep into the pine forests on both sides for the time being, because the snow thickness there was too extreme.
The snow on the river bank was not extreme yet, so they kept moving forward for a whole day, and by this time the glacier had completely disappeared.
The sun only appeared on the horizon before disappearing. With the extravagant sunlight, people trekking in the snow finally saw a magical scene.
Because there is no road ahead, there is nothing in the north, no pine trees, no tundra, there is only a lot of salty water!
"This! It must be the sea at the end of the world." Standing in the short sunshine, Biyongni was not very excited. He leaned on a wooden stick and calmly looked at the vast ocean in the north, listening to the waves beating on the frozen land.
Everything is so peaceful.
"We have finally arrived. This is what I call the ice-free bay and the ice-free sea. The sea at the end of the world is right here. But this is not the end of the world." Rurik forced a smile as he spoke.
Listening carefully, Biyongni felt a little disappointed: "I thought there was a cliff. The cliff is the realm outside the World Tree and the world after ordinary people die. Could it be that the priest was wrong?"
"See it with your eyes!" Rurik said: "This is the Arctic Ocean. It is protected by a warm sea and will never freeze. If we Russians build a port here and place some ships, it will be
If you can take a boat to the west along the coastline, you can reach your hometown in as little as seven days."
"This..." Originally, Biyongni didn't care too much about this matter. Standing in front of this legendary sea, he realized that behind Rurik's words, he was actually saying that this sea is different from the sea in his hometown.
Communicating.
Floki listened carefully to Rurik's words, and his worldview was rewritten. Unlike his brother's doubts, he completely believed Rurik's words, and then interjected and asked: "So, what is at the end of this sea?"
"A new world!"
"New world?"
"First there is a huge ice sheet, and then there is land. If we continue to move forward, we will..." Rurik looked at Floki's expectant eyes and did not go into details. He made a pretense: "It's all from God.
Revelation, it was Odin who told me about the existence of this place, and also revealed that beyond this sea is an unknown new world of happiness. Floki, if the preview you are carrying is true, you should find a way to cross this sea to find that
New world."
"I will! I will succeed!"
Floki was already jumping excitedly, and then shouted facing the Arctic Ocean: "Odin! I will succeed! In my life, I must lead my people to live in the new world!"
Rurik shrugged. He still didn't know that he had inspired a Norwegian madman, Floki the Raven, the one who colonized Iceland with unprecedented power. If this was also his fate.
Biyongni was extremely realistic at this moment. He knew that the sun was about to disappear for a long time, and everyone could only stay here before the sun returned. The situation should not be bad, the rivers and seas here do not freeze, and fishing is at least no problem.
He suddenly asked about Rurik: "We are building a camp. You are the hero who led us here. Give the camp a name and give the river a name."
"Okay. The river is the Moorman River, and our camp is Moorman Fort."
What does Moorman mean? Biyoni and everyone else didn't understand it at all. The name was quite simple. It was the name given by Rurik himself, and everyone accepted it immediately without any objection.
The team finally stopped on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. A camp called Fort Moorman, which will withstand the long polar night, is about to rise. In the future, this camp will surely become the true northernmost stronghold of the Ross people, even if it is far away from Ai
Lomborg is already very far away, but what does this mean to the Russians, who are a branch of the Vikings? Besides, this place is really close to the Narvik Fjord by sea!
As a result, after Rurik's personal exploration and discovery, and under his personal supervision, the construction of Murman Castle (Murmansk) began in the last month of 831 AD.
But Rurik, he basically cannot return to his hometown of Rossburg to participate in this year's winter sacrifice. Even for the entire Ross tribe, people will suddenly find Lord Rurik disappearing in the ice field!
Are the tribesmen worried about anything? Rurik can no longer care about that much.
The people who rushed to the coast for inspection immediately saw the orange phantom in the sunset, and people began to get restless and laugh wildly.
Because those are polar bears that hunt seals resting on the shore, and there are quite a lot of them!